


Valentine's Day

by Ladderofyears



Series: Healer Draco [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Auror Harry Potter, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Healer Draco Malfoy, M/M, Off Screen Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-27 18:24:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17771945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladderofyears/pseuds/Ladderofyears
Summary: Harry woke up shortly before dawn. The cold grey light of the room was unforgiving, and he realised he’d only been asleep for a couple of hours. The bed beside him was cold and empty, but Draco wasn’t absent from their home.Harry could feel their wards had shifted, and knew his husband had returned. Harry sensed Draco’s unique magic; could feel their bond prickling against his skin, warm and urgent. All at once, Harry knew that something was terribly wrong, and that his husband needed him.A small story where Harry realises that he can't fix everything.





	Valentine's Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [harry-shitposting-potter (alfredolover119)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alfredolover119/gifts).



When Draco received the _Patronus_ , neither Harry, nor he made a fuss. 

The nature of their work meant that even their most beloved plans could Disapparate before their very eyes, and today was just such a day. Harry had planned their Valentine’s Day to perfection, wanting every detail to satisfy his husband’s high standards and exquisite tastes. He’d purchased the Laurent- Perrier Champagne that he knew Draco loved, and small, elf-made pastries from the patisserie on Diagon Alley. 

Merlin, Harry knew Draco deserved all this and more besides. Harry felt like he’d not been truly present in their marriage for months. His entire energy and thoughts looped away constantly, thinking only of the Illegal Potions ring that his team had yet to break. Harry had got close two weeks before, but a _Difindo_ to his chest meant that the criminal involved had narrowly escaped. 

Harry pursed his lips at the memory. 

Draco had been terrified by how close Harry had come to catastrophe that night, and they’d been on rocky ground ever since. His husband couldn’t bear the waiting; couldn’t bear the worry that one random flick of a wand might one day spell the end of everything. Harry could see the strain in the small lines around Draco’s eyes, and in the way he averted his face each time Harry was called back out into the field. 

He knew they had to talk, but he’d avoided it, shamefully skirting around the subject whenever it was broached. Harry had hoped, desperately, that tonight would finally resolve their issues. 

But Draco had grabbed his Healing bag that he kept by the door. Harry knew Draco had placed an Extension Charm on it, and had filled it with an assortment of potions and tools that he might need in special cases. Draco had kissed Harry, warned him to keep the pastries under a _stasis_ charm, rather than scoff them, and told him not to wait up. 

He’d flooed to St. Mungos with not one moment of hesitation. 

Draco was Lead Healer in the Department of Magical Ailments and Injuries, and Harry never really knew how long he’d be working whenever he left their home. Of course, he tried to wait for his husband, unwilling to lose their Valentine’s Day, but the evening turned into the middle of the night. After a lacklustre fire-call with Ron, and a Muggle film he’d snoozed through, Harry knew he had to admit defeat. He’d be in no fit state for work as it was. 

Turning off the lights with a flick of his wand, Harry went to bed. 

***

Harry woke up shortly before dawn. The cold grey light of the room was unforgiving, and he realised he’d only been asleep for a couple of hours. His eyes felt scratchy, his skin felt tight and he sighed, knowing already tell this was going to be a day he relied heavily on Pepper-Up Potion and coffee to feel even half-present. The bed beside him was cold and empty, but Draco wasn’t absent from their home. 

Harry could feel their wards had shifted, and knew his husband had returned. Harry sensed Draco’s unique magic; could feel their bond prickling against his skin, warm and urgent. All at once, Harry knew that something was terribly wrong, and that his husband needed him. 

Quickly pulling on the trousers he’d discarded last night, Harry strode into their lounge, finding Draco’s hunched form sat on the settee. An empty glass was in his husband’s hand, their bottle of Firewhiskey half full beside him. 

Even from the other side of the room, it was obvious that Draco was utterly distraught. His defeated, exhausted body seemed shrunken, as if he were only half the man who’d moved confidently through that floo the evening before. 

Horrible, fractured memories of Draco in the years after the War echoed through Harry’s mind as he took in the sight of his husband.

His normally immaculate hair was matted and greasy; his skin was tinged with grey. The lines around his eyes spoke of a night without sleep and Harry felt embarrassed by his peevish thoughts when he’d awoken just moments before. Draco’s magic was rolling off him in irregular, discordant waves that seemed to Harry to intensify as he walked slowly over towards him. _This is all wrong_ , Harry thought, as he placed himself carefully beside his lover. _I’m the one who gets upset, the one who can’t control their emotions._

“It was the Potions Ring, Harry” Draco whispered, his voice dry and rough. His words sounded like they’d been dredged from some deep place in his husbands throat. “The wizard who attacked you… Tried to rip off the Apothecary on Knockturn. It got nasty… The Aurors have him, Harry. They’ve got him a cell. But… Not before he attacked. That same modified _Difindo_ , Harry. On the old man-” 

Draco swallowed, the next words choked into nothingness. His body seemed to slacken at that too, like his last vestige of strength was gone. He slumped into the pillows, looking utterly broken. 

Harry was silent. This wasn’t the time for platitudes, or sympathetic noises that meant nothing. Draco needed him to be stronger than that. Harry had been there himself, missed those vital last seconds that would have made all the difference between life and death. 

His husband’s back was fixed, rigid, despite his slouching posture. Even though Harry tried to slide his arm around Draco’s back; tried to offer wordless comfort, Draco was unyielding. He’d retreated away from Harry, just as he had in those long post-War years. The other man’s face was a mask. Harry could tell he’d turned his gaze inwards; that he was recalling horrors that Harry could scarcely imagine. 

“I thought… Thought we’d finished with the waste of it… Thought wizarding society was beyond all of this” Draco muttered, as if the long minutes of silence hadn’t occurred. 

“But it seems we’re as venal; as rotten and corrupt as we ever were… He cut him into ribbons, Harry. I thought maybe I could save him, the old man… And for a time I was managing, knitting him back together. But it was the curse. It made my magic too slow… I couldn’t fight it, nothing helped-”

Harry couldn’t help it. He knew it was wrong; that it made him pathetic, contemptible even, but he felt _relief._

Relief that his husband; his talented, empathetic, damaged husband; had finally spoken, that he had retuned to Harry’s side from whatever dark place his memories had pulled him. Harry chose to remain quiet, to let Draco vocalise what had happened in his own words, in his own time. With the ends of his blunt fingers he gently drew circles on his lover’s knee, hoping the touch would ground him, and bring him just a little comfort. 

“Hours… It took hours for him to die. I felt his magic ebbing away, felt the moment when the air quietened, and his life left his body… His wife was there too, just an innocent old lady… And she had to watch him die, all for the sake of a few bloody Galleons… My parents brought me up to think that wizards were superior to all other beings… To believe that we were the heirs of the Earth. _But we’re nothing_. Worse than nothing if that's what we use our magic for-”

Harry knew that there was a stubborn, broken part of Draco that could never forgive himself for the errors he’d made as a child. 

A part of him that still strove for forgiveness. It was the reason he’d worked so hard in his Healer training, why he still, continually honed his knowledge and why he could never, ever gave up on any patient. Its why he hadn’t given up on the old apothecary in the face of appalling injuries. 

And Harry knew how his husband _looked_ to those outside their inner-circle. 

An arrogant, perfectionist of a man who demanded insane loyalty and standards from all the staff he worked with. Harry knew how people whispered about Draco; how they called him aloof and proud. But those same people didn’t understand how he was _driven_ to protect, driven to heal others in a demented pact he’d made with himself: as long as he was healing others, he could forgive himself. 

“It wasn’t your fault he died, Draco” Harry said mildly. They were the first words he’d spoken to his husband, and he knew they’d make not one jolt of difference. “It was the fault of the bastard at the end of the wand. You did everything you could, and I promise you, his family will take comfort from that-”

“You know, Harry-” Draco interrupted, in a flat, toneless voice. “All the time I worked on the old man, one thought kept rolling through my head. That I was glad _it wasn’t you_ that lay there in front of me. You that I was knitting back together slowly… Far too slowly, it seems. And so I worked just as hard as I could… I worked to _save you,_ because of just how easily it could have been you on the table. And I should have done more, because he died… He died, anyway-”

Harry leaned towards Draco, and kissed his cheek. Kissed his hair, and his shoulder. He kissed him anywhere that he could reach, because right then it was important Draco knew that he was loved, that he was cared for and needed. But his husband had retreated into himself once more. His eyes were hooded and unseeing, and his mouth was a thin line. 

They’d need to talk tomorrow, he realised. 

They’d need to talk about their future, and his own front line work. It wasn’t sustainable, and if he were truthful, he’d known that for months. He loved Draco more than the world, and Harry swore he’d never put that at risk again. 

But right now, in the cold light of the morning, there was nothing he could say to make him feel better. 

Nothing that Harry could do that would pull the emotion, the _failure_ out from Draco’s mind. Time was the only magic that would achieve that end, but Harry knew that was okay. They had forever to be together. A forever for Harry to love, support and care for Draco, until the day he was ready to love, support and care for himself once more.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this story xx


End file.
